


Soaked

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life [35]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9223967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: And then the rains came ...





	

Fueled by hot dogs and caffeine, they decided, at Mulder’s urging, to walk down some ways and take in a different view. An hour later, Mulder was exhausted, his arms were on fire and thunder was rumbling through the canyon. It should have sent them packing but really, what’s a little rain now and again.

Except when there was nothing, then a deluge the likes of which should have brought Noah and his ark shooting down the white-water rapids of the Colorado River far below. People scattered for dry overhangs and shelter in buildings while Mulder, crutching his way on now slick as hell pavement mixed with mud, moved a lot slower. Scully tried but failed to keep him dry and within a minute of the downpour starting, Mulder stopped moving all together, standing there, soaked so thoroughly that he might as well have jumped in the ocean, “Scully?”

“Mulder? Why’d you stop? Come on.”

“There’s no point.” Looking down at his cast, “this thing’s already filled with water and it weighs about 30 pounds more than it did a minute ago.” Resting it on the ground, she watched water pouring out the open toe area, the plaster already beginning to mush flat from the slight weight he put on it.

“Well, shit.”

Even though he was in a semi-dire position at the moment, he had to give her a smile, “that should seriously be your catch phrase.”

“Mulder, this isn’t a joke. We need to get you back to the hospital so they can re-cast your leg.”

Having to look for the humor in the situation, given his stitches were already starting to sting and pull, “makes it sound like it’s got its own TV show or something.”

She was not amused, the thunder banging around them, the rain, impossibly, seeming to be coming down even harder, the pounding of the little water bullets on her skull giving her a headache, “can you move at all?”

A quick gust of wind made him stumble, then hit the ground, his one leg and slippery crutches not able to keep him upright. The agonizing pain shooting from his ankle to his hip as he twisted and slammed his full weight on his cast made him cry out, the sound, reverberating through both her heart and her ear, sent her into doctor mode, “stay here.”

Through gritted teeth and the stars drifting past his eyeballs, “where the hell else would I go?”

She didn’t hear him through the storm and moving within view of a family huddled under a water fountain overhand, “can you help me?

Soon, Mulder was on the back of the little golf cart thing the park rangers used, getting a lift to the parking lot, being told the clinic on site was closed for the day and the nearest hospital was in Flagstaff. Scully’s doctoring was still in full-on mode so she was grateful, efficient in getting directions and careful about driving through the still storming weather, not wanting another accident to hinder them.

Mulder’s cast rested on a trashbag the ranger had given Scully, the mush collecting and running off onto the carpet while their sodden clothes soaked the seats thoroughly. Once Scully found the proper road to get them out, she looked in the rearview mirror at his pained face, “how are you doing?”

“You want the lie or the truth?”

“Shit. The truth, please.”

“I think I popped the pins out. It feels as bad as when I did it and it’s not going away.”

She pulled over as quickly as she could, parking before she twisted to face his deteriorating cast, “I’m going to lift it up, all right?”

“Go for it.”

Underneath was a pink stained puddle of plaster goop where he’d been slowly bleeding from either stitches ripping or something worse, “so, you’re bleeding a little.”

Shifting and wincing, “I used to like the Grand Canyon, too. Damn hole.”

“Big damn hole.”

“Pain in the ass-hole.”

Only Mulder would make a pun at this point in their day, “enjoy your jokes now because it’s going to be a very long and bumpy ride.”

“Still got them Vicodin handy up there or are they back in the luggage?”

Digging in the glove compartment, she handed him one and her bottle of water, “drink up and hang on.”

Mulder shut his eyes, “I’m pretty sure that was my motto in college.”

&&&&&&&&&&

He was grimacing in his half-dazed haze when they got to the hospital. He woke up quickly, however, when the orderlies fished him from the puddle he’d made in the back of the car. Both men, plus the nurses were impressed with the molecular structure of his cast by the time he was settled in his ER cubicle and after an x-ray, they cleaned him off, revealing his ripped stitches and amazingly enough, the heads of two of the pins.

After telling Mulder this, he shut his eyes, “speak nothing of this ever again. I defer all medical whatever to my partner there. She gets to decide everything; someone just wake me when it’s over.”

It wasn’t the most difficult thing to do, pushing the pins back in place, stitching him back up and, thank God, getting him into a removable cast, one that breathed, could get wet if necessary and with inserts that could be dried in a dryer. Scully nearly kissed the doctor.

So did Mulder.

After they were finished with Mulder, they sent him on his drug-addled merry way. Scully wasn’t sure, once again, how she’d get him up to their hotel room but she managed, swearing to a minimum, and finally tucked him in bed, foot back at the three pillow elevation. It was now well after midnight and she was exhausted yet starving. Not sure if they had anything left in their room, she scavenged until she created a meal of trail mix, a leftover hard-as-a-rock biscuit, four yellow starbursts and a handful of M&Ms from the bottom of Mulder’s backpack.

It was a meal made in heaven and she fell asleep soon after, finally peeling off her damp clothing, putting on thankfully dry underwear and pajamas and crashing beside Mulder, who was still decked out in a borrowed scrub shirt and cutoff scrub pants, his wet clothing forgotten for the moment in a plastic bag in the car.

That would be tomorrow’s problem.

&&&&&&&&&

“At least let me help you clean out the car?”

“Mulder, you move and I will be forced to handcuff you to the bed. I swear to God.”

“You’ve gotta stop swearing to that poor man, Scully, he’s going to start getting pissed.”

She slept like ass the night before and did not enjoy the prospect of having to clean the car of two weeks of trash and wrappers so she could then air-dry the upholstery in the roasting parking lot, windows down and evaporation working as it should. She prayed that drying the car would also rid it of that heavy wet plaster, glue-like smell that seemed to permeate the seats.

Also, once she trudged back upstairs, wet clothing in hand, Mulder questioned her innocently, “did you move the car around so we could watch it from the balcony?”

“What?”

“Well, the windows are all down so somebody could steal it but if you put it in the lot where we can watch it from the balcony, then we can just sit out there to keep an eye on it.” He didn’t like the look of her sparking eye, “I probably should have thought about that sooner, huh?”

Head hanging, she pulled the keys from her pocket, then opened the balcony door, hanging a towel over the railing so she could identify their room, “I’ll be back.”

She returned to the room, parked herself just in view of the Jeep but still in the shade, then looked at her partner, “today is not fun.”

“I’m sorry.” Giving her an only slightly hopped-up smile meant to charm and disarm, “at least we’re close to good food and we have cable.”

“What did you do on your vacation, Dana? Well, mom, I took Mulder to the hospital twice, nearly got thrown in Mexican prison, thought I was dying of cancer for a few days, had a personal wet t-shirt contest in front of half the visitors at the Grand Canyon, never wearing a white shirt again, by the way, and gained 30 pounds because Mulder insisted on making me eat dessert every single night … and I watched TV.”

Mulder eyed her with a glimmer in his smile, “white t-shirts are my very favorite.”

She threw the towel from the balcony railing at him, shaking her head as she returned his grin, allowing her stress to slough off instantly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”


End file.
